Tag: Executive orders

by A1F Daily Staff – Friday, May 13, 2016

Photo credit: Dimitri Otis and Jrroman

It’s now in black and white in the Federal Register: President Barack Obama wants to ban firearm ownership for millions of Americans who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments or Disability Insurance benefits under the Social Security Act.

In the biggest gun grab in American history, the Obama White House wants to retroactively nullify the Second Amendment rights of millions of Americans who receive Social Security benefits, who get those payments through “representative payees.”

As the Los Angeles Timesreported in July, this new proposed gun ban tracks with what the Obama administration has already done to disarm American veterans through the Veterans Administration: If you receive benefits, and if for whatever reason, you have been assigned a “fiduciary”—in other words, someone who helps you manage your financial affairs, whether it’s balancing your checkbook or depositing checks in your account—then your gun rights are gone.

Under the Social Security Administration’s proposed implementation of the same scheme, if such a beneficiary has a “representative payee,” then their right to keep and bear arms would be nullified, as well.Proposed rule could ban gun ownership by millions through executive fiat.

As the L.A. Times pointed out, this wholesale revocation of the right to keep and bear arms for an entire class of people casts an extraordinarily wide net. Yale psychiatrist Dr. Marc Rosen told the Times, “Someone can be incapable of managing their funds but not be dangerous, violent or unsafe. They are very different determinations.”

“… we would identify, on a prospective basis, individuals who receive Disability Insurance benefits … or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments … and also meet certain other criteria, including an award of benefits based on a finding that the individual’s mental impairment meets or medically equals the requirements of section 12.00 of the Listing of Impairments (Listings) and receipt of benefits through a representative payee.”

Once those individuals were identified, they would be reported to the National Instant Check System (NICS) “on not less than a quarterly basis” as prohibited persons barred from purchasing, owning or even using firearms, and:

“We would also notify individuals, both orally and in writing, of their possible Federal prohibition on possessing or receiving firearms, the consequences of such inclusion, [and] the criminal penalties for violating the Gun Control Act …”

As the Times pointed out, 2.7 million Americans currently receive Social Security disability payments for so-called “mental impairment,” and 1.5 million have assistance with their financial affairs through “representative payees.” That’s at least 4.2 million Americans receiving Social Security benefits—and possibly more—who could lose their right to keep and bear arms to protect themselves and their families.

Ari Ne’eman, who sits on the federal National Council on Disability, said that group would oppose any federal rule change that used the existence of a representative payee as a reason to deny fundamental rights. “The rep payee is an extraordinarily broad brush,” Ne’eman told theLos Angeles Times.

Here’s the tricky part, at least right now. Unless you’re a Philadelphia lawyer or someone fluent in the language of Washington bureaucratese, it’s not easy to figure out in advance, who, exactly, will fall under such a ban.

Once you start wading into the wilderness of the Federal Register—as we did—to try to sort out exactly who will be banned from owning firearms, several things strike you:

First, the regulations are so voluminous and impossibly impenetrable (and changing all the time) that it’s hard to figure out where even to begin your search.

Second, even after you identify one of the groups whose rights will be nullified—for example, those whose “mental impairment meets or medically equals the requirements of section 12.00 of the Listing of Impairments”—when you finally find and read that section of the Federal Register, the definitions spiral off into an undefined infinity where (for example) having “odd beliefs” can qualify you as having a “personality disorder” … or where “sleep disturbance, fatigue or panic attacks” qualifies you as having an “anxiety disorder” … or having “poor conceptual, social and practical skills” qualifies you for having an “intellectual disability.” It goes on and on, with the terms getting vaguer and more subjective the deeper you wade.Another scheme to deny the right to arms to as many people, for as many reasons, as often and as permanently as possible.

Just as the psychiatrists’ bible of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has grown under the pressure of disease mongering—so that everyone gets their own mental “disorder” and everyone gets a pill—you can bet the number of disqualifying characteristics for lawful gun ownership will grow as fast as anyone can justify them.

And just because you’re not on the “Listings” today doesn’t mean you won’t have your rights denied tomorrow. As Dr. Allen J. Frances notes in aPsychology Today article headlined “Psychiatric Fads and Overdiagnosis”:

“The NIMH estimates that, in any given year, 25 percent of the population has a diagnosable mental disorder. A prospective study found that, by age 32, 50 percent of the general population had qualified for an anxiety disorder, 40 percent for a depression, and 30 percent for alcohol abuse or dependence. Imagine what the rates will be like by the time these people hit 50, or 65, or 80. In this brave new world of psychiatric overdiagnosis, will anyone get through life without a mental disorder?”

Disarming dangerous, mentally ill people is one thing. This is something an order larger.

If someone is mentally ill and presents a danger to him- or herself or others, no one wants to see that person have access to firearms. That goes without saying. No one benefits from the tragedies that can result except the anti-gun lobby, which often exploits them. The rest of us suffer, not just with our safety and loss but also, thanks to Obama’s SSI and VA schemes, with our ability to protect ourselves from those very dangerous people. That’s wrong.

But this isn’t about keeping guns away from the mentally ill. It’s about denying the right to keep and bear arms to as many people, for as many reasons, in as many places, in as many ways, as often and as permanently as they possibly can.

It’s part of a bigger trend, where politicians seek to take away the gun rights of ever more people—not just through the diagnosis of a medical professional, but also with little more than hearsay, as they’re pushing to do in California now.

And it’s just one of the ways Obama is going around the law to make new law—just as the NRA warned he would do in his last months in office.

But Obama’s scheme isn’t just the biggest gun grab by an American president in history.

For President Obama, who said his failure to win gun control is the “biggest frustration” of his presidency, to turn around now and bend the law into knots to disarm countless Americans who pose no threat—just so he can leave behind a blob of regulations for decades of lawyers to try to disentangle, despite the legislative process and regardless of how many good people are needlessly left defenseless—is more than arrogant. It’s a downright embarrassment.

In the end, your best way to fight back may be to contact your U.S. senators and representative. Urge them to oppose Obama’s Social Security gun grab. Americans who pose no threat to anyone should not have their most fundamental right—the right that gives us the ability to survive criminal attack—denied by hearsay, financial incompetence or a president’s arrogance.

Most importantly, get registered to vote, and on Nov. 3, cast your vote. If Hillary Clinton wins the White House, you can bet she’ll push through schemes like this that make Obama look like an amateur.

Use Your Power!

Right now, Obama’s proposed rule is open for public comment until July 5, 2016. You can submit your comments by
clicking here.

Like this:

Most people can delude themselves into believing they’re safe from a multitude of unfamiliar dangers. This is probably because we want to be safe from these things, but do not really know how to actually achieve that goal. Call it whistling past the graveyard, but we accept what someone else calls safety when it comes to a subject where we lack experience. Firearms safety is a case in point. Many a gun muggle will accept without question what someone with a teleprompter and a nice suit tells them.

No one, unless they’re utterly devoid of decency, wants unsafe firearms in our society. As gun owners, we drill the basic rules of gun safety into the heads of new shooters: Do not load a gun until you’re ready to use it, do not put your finger, or anything else, on the trigger until you’re about to shoot, and never, ever let the gun point at something you’re unwilling to see destroyed. We know guns and we know what they can do if mishandled. No one is more interested in gun safety than a gun owner. So when a gun owner balks at using a “safety” device, you should wonder about the device and not the gun owner.

The latest “safety” device to fail to earn the trust of gun owners is the “smart” gun. President Obama has ordered the DOD, DOJ, and Homeland Security to investigate use of these devices by government personnel. But Ars Technica founder Jon Stokes questions the efficacy of this technology. He wrote in the L.A. Times:

Gun owners are terrified of anything that might make their guns less reliable. And when they consider the frequency with which their $700 smart phone’s fingerprint scanner fails when presented with a clean, dry, perfectly-positioned thumb, they rightly conclude that putting any type of electronic lock on their Glock will likely make them less secure, not more.

Stokes also notes that “smart” guns that communicate with some sort of external device, like a big, ugly watch that only the authorized user is supposed to wear, could be detected by the same hardware credit card thieves use to sniff out RFID equipped cards. This either makes the gun owner a target for theft or it marks them as something to avoid; which then puts you, the unarmed one in the crowd, into the thief’s crosshairs.

There are other safety concerns…

If the “smart” part of the gun fails, does it let the gun fire for anyone or no one? Either can lead to disaster if gun is in the hands of someone who can’t answer the question.

If they’re having a really, really bad day on the job, can Officer Smith pick up Officer Jones’ “smart” gun and use it? Or does he have to get Officer Jones’ big, ugly watch first?

Stokes notes the potential for hacking. How many police officers or soldiers would want a service weapon that the bad guys could shut off with a smartphone app?

How many gun owners would want that same gun with its hidden remote kill switch?

When it comes to water or gun cleaning chemicals, can the “smart” part of the gun take a joke? Most electronics don’t play well with moisture or oil.

It’s these unknowns and others that make “smart” guns so unappealing to gun owners. We realize that they make our guns less safe for us and our loved ones. This is why there’s no market for them, not some nefarious plot by the dreaded gun lobby.

So why is the President pushing the technology?

I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that, like all decent people, he wants guns to be safer. But bless his little heart, he has no idea what he’s talking about. He doesn’t understand firearms, let alone ones with untested features. He doesn’t understand how safe guns are. The number of gun related accidents has been falling in the US for decades. But rather than seek advice from the nation’s premier gun safety organization, the NRA, he sought out the opinions of other, equally ignorant, gun muggles.

Like this:

It’s long been true that the ATF will stop a transfer if a gun buyer admits to using controlled substances like marijuana. The prohibition certainly wasn’t universally successful as it requires self reporting. The joke has always been that if you admit to smoking weed on your 4473, then you’re already too baked to have a gun. But now, that could change.

As we’ve reported before, Obama’s latest executive orders and rule making have opened the door to violations of doctor-patient confidentiality that would have resulted in jail time before. While there’s a danger that some creative diagnoses could deny Americans their 2nd Amendment rights, that’s still in the realm of “maybe”. A more immediate threat, however, exists for Californians and others who hold State-issued medical marijuana identification cards.

The Obama Administration has a goal of stripping as many Americans as possible of their right to keep and use firearms. Obama has already moved to disarmed disabled veterans who can’t balance their own checkbooks. MMIC holders in California and other States that have legalized medical marijuana use won’t be far behind. While those States may encourage the use of medical marijuana, they’re also “Blue” States that are dominated by Obama loyalists. If you have an MMIC, you can be sure that you’ll be thrown under the bus in short order by your State government.

We asked Democrat candidate Bernie Sanders for his opinion on the matter, but he wouldn’t stop playing the bongos long enough to respond.

On Thursday, January 7, President Barack Obama appeared in the CNN-produced “Guns in America,” an invitation-only “town hall” held on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Immediately following the forum, CNN shifted to several pundits who offered their analysis of the event. On hand was former Obama administration “Special Advisor for Green Jobs” Van Jones, who, perhaps unintentionally, offered some of the most astute observations of the evening. Jones admitted Obama answered some of the questions “poorly,” later adding that “some of his answers made my skin crawl,” implying that the president does not truly know the issue or understand America’s culture of gun ownership.This is an accurate assessment of the president’s performance, as Obama repeatedly mischaracterized the concerns many Americans have pertaining to their gun rights and cited faulty information to further his arguments.

On Tuesday, the president announced a series of gun control actions in the form of “executive actions” during a lengthy press conference at the White House. Throughout, the president made it abundantly clear that restricting the rights of America’s law-abiding gun owners will remain his focus in the last year of his tenure.We saw something very similar in January 2013, when Obama said he would not wait for Congress to act on gun control and unilaterally imposed 23 executive actions on guns, insisting they would help save lives. Then, as now, what was missing from Obama’s statements was any substantiation – or even any convincing explanation – of how his restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms would save lives, or impact public safety in a meaningful way. Once again, we were asked to accept as an article of faith that diminishing the rights of the law-abiding will somehow influence the actions of violent criminals or others intent on harm.

Background checks may not stop criminals from getting guns, but new data on the number of checks make the case that Americans are not as enthusiastic about gun control as President Barack Obama wants people to believe. On Monday, the day before Obama announced a series of executive actions on gun control, the FBI reported that there were record-shattering numbers of background checks for firearm purchases and permits in the month of December and for the entire year of 2015. A whopping 3.3 million firearm-related checks were conducted in December, the highest one-month tally in the history of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

President Obama is using executive actions to restrict your Second Amendment rights. You must make this clear to candidates in 2016: If they support the Obama anti-gun agenda now, they will not get your vote in November!

Thursday, while President Barack Obama was hosting a town hall in Fairfax, VA broadcasted on CNN about his gun policy, Chris W. Cox, the executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, reacted to Obama’s effort on Fox News Channel’s “The Kelly File.”

NRA All Access meets with NRA’s legislative team to discuss details to Hillary Clinton’s gun control agenda and the ramifications for gun owners if she were to enter office. Then we recollect on the long lasting relationship between the NRA and Boy Scouts. Watch it Wednesday at 6:30 PM ET on The Outdoor Channel!

The reservations here though lie with the bifurcated technique being used by President Obama. While Judge Andrew Napolitano notes that this week’s Executive Orders stand a good chance of being overturned, one has more concern for actions like the Final Rule on Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) related to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

…

What this does is give “permission” to various agencies at state and local level to reveal private mental health information determinations to the Federal Government without risk of being subject to Federal penalties for releasing that private health information.

But what happens when it is not a judge making this finding, after due process, but instead is a politicized commission making the “diagnosis”? Or a single-payer health provider? Or a state-run Medicaid agency?That is the part that seems most unclear, and seems most dangerous to one’s Constitutional rights.

And are there protections built into the new HIPAA rule being promulgated by the President? Apparently not, since it leaves additional State Prohibitor classifications up to the States to determine, promulgate and share with the Feds as they see fit.

Add to that there is no Federal process noted in the HIPAA rule that calls for prior notification to gun owners of a State Prohibitor designation, and one gets the sneaking suspicion that one can end up committing the serious crime of attempting to purchase a firearm when one has been listed as having a Federal or State Prohibitor status. In many cases, conviction for such an attempt may end up with a felony judgement, which in turn permanently ends one’s right to keep and bear arms for the foreseeable future.

In other words, President Obama’s Devil Is In The Details here with this weeks foray into a civilian disarmament campaign. Gun owners stand on notice- they need to involve themselves in the political process fully in what is now the most important election of their lifetime. It’s either that, or be satisfied with servitude until Judgement Day.

Of course, we’re still at the not-too-late stage of the game. You can help to stop Obama’s lone wolf attack on the Bill of Rights by clicking on the link to the right and joining the NRA.

Like this:

TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2016

Fairfax, Va. – The executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, Chris W. Cox, released the following statement on Tuesday regarding President Barack Obama’s Executive Gun Control Order:

Once again, President Obama has chosen to engage in political rhetoric, instead of offering meaningful solutions to our nation’s pressing problems.Today’s event also represents an ongoing attempt to distract attention away from his lack of a coherent strategy to keep the American people safe from terrorist attack.

The American people do not need more emotional, condescending lectures that are completely devoid of facts.The men and women of the National Rifle Association take a back seat to no one when it comes to keeping our communities safe.But the fact is that President Obama’s proposals would not have prevented any of the horrific events he mentioned.The timing of this announcement, in the eighth and final year of his presidency, demonstrates not only political exploitation but a fundamental lack of seriousness.

The proposed executive actions are ripe for abuse by the Obama Administration, which has made no secret of its contempt for the Second Amendment. The NRA will continue to fight to protect the fundamental, individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms as guaranteed under our Constitution.We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be harassed or intimidated for engaging in lawful, constitutionally-protected activity – nor will we allow them to become scapegoats for President Obama’s failed policies.

Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. More than five million members strong, NRA continues to uphold the Second Amendment and advocates enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the armed services. Be sure to follow the NRA on Facebook at NRA on Facebook and Twitter @NRA.

Like this:

OK… So I’m sitting here scratching my head. You’re probably scratching your head and asking the same question I am: What is he doing?

Throughout his long years in office, Barack Obama has made no secret of his hatred of American gun owners. Almost from day one he’s picked fights with Congress and the Supreme Court over gun control. He’s never passed up an opportunity to demonize the NRA. However, he’s had his limits. He toned it down leading up to his re-election and before the midterm elections. At the time, it looked like he and his advisers were reading the tea leaves correctly; like they understood that support for gun control by the American People might have been a mile wide, but it was only an inch deep. Now, I’m wondering how they went off the rails.

When Obama first came to office, his drive, albeit a weak one, for gun control was understandable as a political tool. For decades, a majority of Americans told pollsters that they supported “stricter gun control laws” and “the assault weapon ban”. They supported gun control in the abstract even if they opposed its specifics. For a liberal Democrat (i.e. a socialist), gun control was a safe bet; a great way to rally the rank and file and to pump up the donors. But, throughout Obama’s tenure the polls have shifted. A majority now oppose gun control. That mile wide, inch deep support has dried up.

President Obama sat down Monday with top law enforcement officials to review and finalize new executive actions aimed at tightening the country’s gun laws – a push that Republicans on Capitol Hill and the campaign trail are calling a “dangerous” overreach.

The president lit a fire under the gun control debate last week when he and his aides announced White House plans to kick off the new year with executive action on gun rules. Obama met Monday afternoon with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey and other top officials to work out those plans.

It’s not just the “what” of it, it’s the “when”. When all you have to offer the electorate is two, cranky, old socialists and an unidentified man, now is not the time to remind people that yours is the party of crazy gun grabbers. Obama and his tea leaf readers can’t possibly think that this is a way to keep the White House and regain the Senate. It’s almost as if he’s deliberately trying to scuttle his party in the 2016 elections.